By Sherry Baysinger
Sherry and her husband Larry are licensed/insured independent contractors who pack mules and offer guided horseback rides and pack trips into Olympic National Park and live at Bear Creek.
Last spring when we saw the pictures of the chalet in Enchanted Valley teetering over the river bank of the Quinault River, we never dreamed we would be involved in saving it. Given the fact that it was predicted several years ago that the chalet would be taken by the river and Olympic National Park had not yet addressed the issue, we expected that it would go the way of many shelters within the park and disappear into the river.
That all changed when Jeff Monroe, Monroe House Mover from Carlsborg, called the park and volunteered to move the chalet. He convinced the park that it was entirely possible to move the building. With a lot of support from local people writing to ask the park to save the chalet, things began to look hopeful for the chalet to be preserved
A little history about the chalet: The chalet, a 2½-story cedar log structure, was constructed to serve as a backcountry lodge in 1930, before the park was established. It was a ranger station and emergency shelter from the 1950s until last year when the river’s movement made it unsafe to be occupied. The chalet was added to the historic building registry in 2007.
The chalet, built of cedar logs, is a solid structure, with tongue and grooved walls inside its eight bedrooms. The kitchen hosts an old wood cook stove that is still usable. There are many sturdy wooden furniture pieces inside the chalet as well.
The decision to save the chalet was made, not so much to save the chalet, but rather to save the river. Because it was unknown what type of preservatives may have been used on the chalet, there was concern that the fish could be harmed if it were to fall into the river. That said, it is my opinion that there was a lot of pressure on the park by people like us, who wrote letters requesting that the chalet be saved.
The park also made a decision that volunteers could not be utilized in the project and that only contractors who were registered with the government could be utilized.
That’s when Jeff Monroe contacted us and we began almost weekly phone calls discussing how we could pull this off.
There were so many roadblocks, that we all had our doubts that we would ever get to do the project. It is due mostly to Jeff Monroe’s patient persistence in working through all the red tape that the project got off the ground.
In mid-August our preparation for the mule pack trip began in earnest. We contacted Sara Woodard from Joyce and asked if she could accompany us as a cook/packer. Sara grew up with horses and has packed llamas (Olympak Llamas).
Sara knows the mountain trails and she’s cooked a lot of backcountry meals. Besides that she has a great sense of humor, which would be needed to get through two weeks of camping, cooking and packing without showers or flushing toilets. Sara accompanied Larry and Jeff on an initial pack trip to check out all the logistics of moving the chalet and her stuffed Cornish hens were a hit.
The two of us started compiling our recipes and menus for three meals a day for crew of 8-15 people who would be helping for at least 14 days. As it turned out, the chalet was moved exactly one week from the crew’s arrival in camp.
The park agreed to provide Jeff Monroe helicopter support for two days to fly in his equipment, which included steel beams weighing upwards of 1,200 pounds. His list of materials included nuts, bolts, shims, cribbing, hammers, nails, screws, plus cases of Ivory and Fels Naptha bar soap to “grease the skids.”
Seriously, the men spent considerable time under the chalet “waxing” the steel beams with bars of soap to make the building slide easily. Anything crucial to moving the chalet had to be on those helicopters and Jeff’s planning was impeccable.
The helicopter size and time of flight was restricted because of the marbled murrelet, which flies to the ocean to get food for its chicks during early and late hours of the day.
Please don’t ask me why by September those murrelet babies haven’t learned to get their own food.
It turned out that the all the pre-weighed steel had to be cut because the small helicopter was not able to lift the 1,200-pound steel beams. Fortunately, the men at the landing zone made connections with a local Aberdeen firm that came and cut the beams so that they could be flown in and reassembled at the chalet.
A lot of things could have gone wrong. The park discouraged all of us who were under contract from discussing the chalet move. We learned that wilderness fanatics always are looking for a lawsuit so the fewer people who knew about the move, the better.
The only equipment that was flown in was what the mules couldn’t pack. Everything about the project was weather sensitive.
If it fogged in or rained, there would be no helicopter flights and all the planning in the world would not save the chalet. It did rain the first day in camp, but after that we had clear, sunny weather every day that the work was in progress. Everything went like clockwork.
One difficult part of the food planning was keeping our fresh food frozen, or chilled with no power. We purchased a small chest freezer, which we kept in one of the horse trailers. Mike McCracken, our trailhead camp guard, kept the generator going to keep our food frozen.
It was necessary to set up three camps; one at the Graves Creek Horse Camp, 1½ miles from the actual trailhead, one at the chalet and a stock camp across the river from the chalet.
There are no corrals at the horse camp, so we took our own round pen and electric wire and built our horse containment. We normally use high lines in the backcountry for our horses/mules, but keeping horses/mules high lined for such a long stretch would not make for happy critters.
With our own corral panels and fenced areas, the mules/horses were free to roll, rest and relax. Also, while our friend Scott Montgomery was there, each set of mules had separate containment areas.
Our friend Al Chapman arrived with three mules that we would use for the initial pack in. We had been on the trail with two of his mules before, but the third mule one was new to Al. When he told us that someone had given him the mule, I was immediately apprehensive. People just don’t give away GOOD mules. I asked why the guy gave away the mule and Al said “She’s hard to catch.”
So on the morning that we are all set to start loading mules, Al’s free mule managed to slip her halter and took off down the road. That started what Sara called “a game changer.”
To be continued …
